Greg Walker
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199283330
- eISBN:
- 9780191712630
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283330.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book considers the impact of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the Royal Supremacy of the 1530s upon the generation of poets, playwrights, and prose-writers who lived through those events. ...
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This book considers the impact of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the Royal Supremacy of the 1530s upon the generation of poets, playwrights, and prose-writers who lived through those events. Spanning the boundaries between literature and history, it charts the profound effects that Henry’s increasingly tyrannical regime had on the literary production of the early 16th century and shows how English writers strove to mitigate, redirect, and finally resist oppressive royal demands. The book argues that the result of Henrician tyranny was both the destruction of a number of venerable literary forms and the collapse of a literary culture that had dominated the late-medieval period, as well as the birth of many modes of writing now seen as characteristic of the English literary renaissance. Separate sections of the book focus specifically upon the work of John Thynne, the editor of the first collected Works of Chaucer; the playwright John Heywood; Sir Thomas Elyot; Sir Thomas Wyatt; and Henry Howard, the poet Earl of Surrey.Less
This book considers the impact of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the Royal Supremacy of the 1530s upon the generation of poets, playwrights, and prose-writers who lived through those events. Spanning the boundaries between literature and history, it charts the profound effects that Henry’s increasingly tyrannical regime had on the literary production of the early 16th century and shows how English writers strove to mitigate, redirect, and finally resist oppressive royal demands. The book argues that the result of Henrician tyranny was both the destruction of a number of venerable literary forms and the collapse of a literary culture that had dominated the late-medieval period, as well as the birth of many modes of writing now seen as characteristic of the English literary renaissance. Separate sections of the book focus specifically upon the work of John Thynne, the editor of the first collected Works of Chaucer; the playwright John Heywood; Sir Thomas Elyot; Sir Thomas Wyatt; and Henry Howard, the poet Earl of Surrey.
Greg Walker
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199283330
- eISBN:
- 9780191712630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283330.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter looks at the increasingly public divisions between the clergy and the laity, conservatives and reformers in the early years of the English Reformation. It charts the role of literary ...
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This chapter looks at the increasingly public divisions between the clergy and the laity, conservatives and reformers in the early years of the English Reformation. It charts the role of literary production in both fuelling the hostilities through polemical publications and in attempting to resolve them through a growing literature advocating moderation and tolerance in many aspects of public life. The drama and lyrics of John Heywood are examined as a key example of the latter.Less
This chapter looks at the increasingly public divisions between the clergy and the laity, conservatives and reformers in the early years of the English Reformation. It charts the role of literary production in both fuelling the hostilities through polemical publications and in attempting to resolve them through a growing literature advocating moderation and tolerance in many aspects of public life. The drama and lyrics of John Heywood are examined as a key example of the latter.
Bradin Cormack
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226116242
- eISBN:
- 9780226116259
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226116259.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Focusing on Cure for a Cuckold (1624), this chapter examines the question of jurisdictional complexity internal to English law by tracking how the sea's disruptive energies implode, ...
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Focusing on Cure for a Cuckold (1624), this chapter examines the question of jurisdictional complexity internal to English law by tracking how the sea's disruptive energies implode, claustrophobically, into the space of London. Written by John Webster, William Rowley, and John Heywood, Cure for a Cuckold tells the story of Compass, a sailor who refuses to acknowledge what his neighbors and the law might tell him: that his wife's illegitimate son is not properly his own. Describing Compass's response to the normative order by invoking a labyrinth of complementary jurisdictional orders (including canon law, civil law, common law, manorial law, and municipal law), the play produces in Compass's evasions a consequentialist ethics that is grounded in a splitting off of effect from cause and in the dramatic projection of a jurisdictional imaginary capable of sustaining a norm alternative to the law's own jurisdictionally constituted norms. Its fascination with jurisdiction and with semi-technical distinctions within and between legal orders speaks to the continuing importance of the Inns of Court as sponsors and knowing audience for theatrical and literary production.Less
Focusing on Cure for a Cuckold (1624), this chapter examines the question of jurisdictional complexity internal to English law by tracking how the sea's disruptive energies implode, claustrophobically, into the space of London. Written by John Webster, William Rowley, and John Heywood, Cure for a Cuckold tells the story of Compass, a sailor who refuses to acknowledge what his neighbors and the law might tell him: that his wife's illegitimate son is not properly his own. Describing Compass's response to the normative order by invoking a labyrinth of complementary jurisdictional orders (including canon law, civil law, common law, manorial law, and municipal law), the play produces in Compass's evasions a consequentialist ethics that is grounded in a splitting off of effect from cause and in the dramatic projection of a jurisdictional imaginary capable of sustaining a norm alternative to the law's own jurisdictionally constituted norms. Its fascination with jurisdiction and with semi-technical distinctions within and between legal orders speaks to the continuing importance of the Inns of Court as sponsors and knowing audience for theatrical and literary production.
Laurie Shannon
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226924168
- eISBN:
- 9780226924182
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226924182.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter is concerned with the early modern reckonings of tails and feet, noting how an anatomical tail is present in nearly all nonhuman animals. It discusses how the notions of wagging, ...
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This chapter is concerned with the early modern reckonings of tails and feet, noting how an anatomical tail is present in nearly all nonhuman animals. It discusses how the notions of wagging, flicking, trailing punctuate an entire logic of course, direction, and forward motion for animals. The chapter studies how that logic is a rival form of sovereignty to uncaptured early modern beasts by looking at texts such as Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, in which Castiglione argues that animal motion is liberated from the twists of passion, and is also the shaping force of quiet “judgemente.” The chapter also examines the taunting proverbial expression, “a cat may look upon a king,” which first appeared in John Heywood’s 1562 collection of proverbs, and looks at the profiles of English kings from Willam the Conqueror to Henry VIII in the book A Cat May Look Upon A King (1652).Less
This chapter is concerned with the early modern reckonings of tails and feet, noting how an anatomical tail is present in nearly all nonhuman animals. It discusses how the notions of wagging, flicking, trailing punctuate an entire logic of course, direction, and forward motion for animals. The chapter studies how that logic is a rival form of sovereignty to uncaptured early modern beasts by looking at texts such as Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, in which Castiglione argues that animal motion is liberated from the twists of passion, and is also the shaping force of quiet “judgemente.” The chapter also examines the taunting proverbial expression, “a cat may look upon a king,” which first appeared in John Heywood’s 1562 collection of proverbs, and looks at the profiles of English kings from Willam the Conqueror to Henry VIII in the book A Cat May Look Upon A King (1652).
John J. Mcgavin and Greg Walker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198768616
- eISBN:
- 9780191821998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198768616.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter looks at early-modern household drama and considers the ways in which recent cognitive theory might help us to understand the spectatorial experience. It argues that the insights of ...
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This chapter looks at early-modern household drama and considers the ways in which recent cognitive theory might help us to understand the spectatorial experience. It argues that the insights of cognitive theory need to be considered as part of a wider, holistic approach to theatrical spectatorship which also acknowledges diversity and variability in response, and the self-reflexive quality that is always a part of theatrical performance and reception. It briefly summarizes the key issues raised by this ‘cognitive turn’ in drama and performance studies before moving on to consider their potential significance for the specific case of early drama performed in the third of the main venues considered in this book, the indoor spaces of the great halls. Exploring the case for and against the cognitive model can reveal a good deal about what it was that made early drama spectatorship so distinct and special.Less
This chapter looks at early-modern household drama and considers the ways in which recent cognitive theory might help us to understand the spectatorial experience. It argues that the insights of cognitive theory need to be considered as part of a wider, holistic approach to theatrical spectatorship which also acknowledges diversity and variability in response, and the self-reflexive quality that is always a part of theatrical performance and reception. It briefly summarizes the key issues raised by this ‘cognitive turn’ in drama and performance studies before moving on to consider their potential significance for the specific case of early drama performed in the third of the main venues considered in this book, the indoor spaces of the great halls. Exploring the case for and against the cognitive model can reveal a good deal about what it was that made early drama spectatorship so distinct and special.
